October 15, 2012

David Ash says he will play against Baylor

Texas Longhorns quarterback David Ash said Monday that he expects to play against Baylor on Saturday night, despite a left wrist injury.

With his non-throwing hand lightly wrapped, Ash said he felt great just two days after injuring his wrist in the fourth quarter of last Saturday's 63-21 loss to Oklahoma. Ash suffered the injury when his wrist was directly hit by a helmet while attempting a pass with just under 10 minutes to play.

"When it hit in the game I was like, 'Shoot, that kind of hurt,' " Ash said. "I was running off and sat down and looked at it and went, 'Oh, shoot.' Everybody started freaking out."

At first, Ash thought he had broken his wrist. But X-rays revealed no fractures.

"That was the initial thought, that I had cracked it," the sophomore said. "I had a lot of people praying for me and I turned out to be OK. It definitely looks worse than it is."

Ash practiced with the Longhorns on Sunday night and did not suffer any setbacks.

"David is tough. I think he'll be fine for Saturday." Texas coach Mack Brown said. "The functions [of his wrist] are all good because he can take a snap and throw and he showed that [Sunday] night. And all of his tests were clean too. So there's nothing there that should prevent him from being as effective as he's been."

Ash, though, was not effective against Oklahoma. He threw two interceptions in the first half and lost a fumble in the third quarter. Ash went 13-of-29 for a season-low 113 yards.

"I did not play as well as I could have," Ash said. "There were a lot of plays that I could have made that I didn't. I thought my poorest job was getting my team ready to play. I didn't do a good job of that."

Ash entered the game against OU averaging 300 passing yards in three previous starts. But he looked overwhelmed against a swarming Sooners defense.

"It was shocking and disappointing for sure," he said. "I didn't expect that going into the game."

Ash lamented the Longhorns' poor showing at the Cotton Bowl and thought the offense became complacent after scoring at least 41 points in four of the first five games.

"I feel like there are a lot of things that we had gotten rolling and I just thought they were going to keep going that way," Ash said. "We didn't pay attention to them as much, as much as I should have."

Texas (4-2, 1-2 Big 12) hosts Baylor (3-2, 0-2) at 7 p.m. Saturday in Austin. The Bears have won each of the last two meetings by an average of 16 points.